Legally Brunette
by RomanticDramadyGirl
Summary: Summer’s rolled around, and even more clichéd problems surround our friend McGee! Noodling, siblings, kidnappings, and old sorority friends galore! Sequel to Springtime Is For Suckers.
1. Chapter One: Boyfriends and Homa Boys

**Chapter One: Boyfriends and Homa-Boys**

"Tim?" Emily called softly, giving the door one gentle knock before taking a step away. After waiting a few beats for someone to answer the door, Tony poked her in the shoulder. "What?" the brunette asked exasperatedly, turning to him.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know." She rolled her eyes.

Disbelief flashed across Tony's face. "Well, you're his girlfriend, Ems. How can you not know where your boyfriend is?"

Emily threw him an angry glance. "Tim is not my boyfriend. We're _dating_. But we're not… exclusive, or anything. He can date if he wants, and so can I."

"But you don't," Tony inferred.

"What?"

"You guys can date other people if you want, but you don't. Because you don't want to," he elaborated. Emily looked disgusted. "Don't you have the key to his apartment yet?"

"Am I his girlfriend?" she asked angrily, rounding on the older man. Remembering how many firearms she had on her person, Tony shook his head meekly. "So do I have the key to his apartment yet?" Another meager shake. "Okay. There you go."

"You frighten me, Emily Saunders," Tony muttered, as the door to McGee's apartment opened and a petite brunette answered the door. She was young, beautiful, and wearing one of Tim's MIT tee shirts. _Okay, so maybe they weren't exclusive yet._ Emily sputtered to get something out.

"Oh, hi." The girl forced a smile. "Tim's still asleep. I can wake him up if you guys want." She rolled her eyes and leaned against the doorframe. "He'd usually be awake by now, but he had a _long_ night." She chuckled quietly.

"I… um… uh…" Emily's teeth clamped down on her bottom lip and she turned to Tony for help. "Tony, um, why don't you go ahead?"

"Sure." He grinned and skirted around Emily. "Hey, Sara." His familiar smiles with the other brunette only served to lessen Emily's resolve. _Tony knew about her and didn't tell me?!_ "This is Emily. She's new with the team."

The girl poked her head around Tony to give her a friendly smile. "Hi, Emily. It's nice to meet you. I'm Sara."

And then everything clicked, and Emily felt very stupid. Tim had mentioned that he had a sister named Sara, and from the brief glimpse of a photo she had seen of the sibling, she was able to determine that this girl was Sara. She was very glad she hadn't said anything, although her behavior alone was odd enough to make people guess what she had been thinking.

Emily let out an awkwardly loud laugh; the other two flinched visibly. "Oh! His _sister_! Tim told me about you!" Shoving Tony aside, she brushed a piece of hair out of her face and held out her hand for Sara to shake. "It's nice to meet you; I'm Emily Saunders. Tim talks about you _all_ _the time_." She noticed the confused look on Sara's face. "Like, in a good way, not a bad way. I hear you're an English major!"

"Yeah, I am…" Sara nodded awkwardly.

"So was I!" Emily exclaimed, suddenly her bubbly, perky self again.

"You weren't in a sorority, too, were you?" the college student asked tentatively.

Emily gasped. "Ohmigod, how can you tell? You aren't in one, too, are you? I was a Delta Tau."

"Uh, no, I'm not in a sorority," (in fact, Sara seemed a little disgusted just by the thought), "you just strike me as someone who was. Or maybe still is." Tony bit back a laugh.

"Oh." Emily giggled. "Weird, huh?" She craned her neck to see into the apartment. "So Tim's still asleep, huh?" Sara nodded. "Up writing all night again?"

The younger McGee's eyes widened. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Just a hunch." The two young women shared an eye roll, and Sara immediately forgave Emily for being in a sorority in college. "You don't mind if I wake him up, do you?"

Shrugging, Sara shook her head. "Be my guest."

Tony followed Emily into the apartment, all the way to the bedroom door, which was still closed. Knowing that McGee would wake up the moment he heard footsteps on his floor, Emily began removing her shoes.

"You must be intimately familiar with this part of the apartment," Tony observed quietly.

"Don't be a lewd jerk, Tony," Emily spat. "I haven't slept with Tim; I'm not a slut like _some_ girls." She shared a _What are you going to do?_ look with Sara and quietly opened the door. Sure enough, there was Tim McGee, passed out in his bed after an all-nighter of writing. Being something of a writer herself, Emily almost felt bad waking him up.

_Almost._

She tiptoed over to the bed, leaned across carefully, getting her mouth as close to his ear as possible, and blew as hard as she could. The minute he felt it, McGee jumped, but Emily was fast and jumped on top of him before he could register what was happening. It only took a spilt second for him to realize that it was Emily, when he saw the brown-haired someone grinning down at him from her perched.

"You're about seven, you know that?" he asked blearily, grabbing her and beginning to tickle her, going right for her weak spots. Emily shrieked and kicked her feet in the air, all the while trying to force out sentences. It was hard for her to breathe, though, let alone get enough air in her lungs for words.

"Tim, Tony came with me," she finally panted, biting her bottom lip to holding in the giggles that still wanted to come out.

McGee shot up and looked over at the door. Sure enough, Tony and Sara stood side-by-side, trying to hold back large, amused grins as they pretended to feign disinterest. They both also looked a little disturbed by such a blatant display of affection. He looked back to Emily with a questioning glance.

"We're on call today," she explained. She didn't need to know his question to know the answer.

"And…?"

"And we got a call."

McGee groaned and fell back onto his pillows. "Do I _have_ to go?"

"Yep. You already promised Gibbs you would be there today."

"I can't pretend to be sick?"

"When have you ever faked illness in your whole life?" Sara asked, knitting her eyebrows together angrily. "I'm the one who does that."

"Yeah, you could never pull it off," Emily agreed. "I'm a good actress and I can't do it."

"I could too!"

The other three in the room exchanged a glance and turned back to him, chorusing in unison, "No you couldn't."

-x-x-

"Was it really necessary to come to my apartment?" Tim asked, blinking back the morning sunlight as he gulped down his gallon of coffee from Ambiguous Donuts, which had since been renamed once more. Now it was Donuts of DC.

"You weren't answering your cell phone," Emily explained, hanging her arm out the open window from her spot in the passenger's side of the car. Tony was driving them directly to the crime scene. "Why weren't you answering you phone, Tim?"

"I turn it off when I write."

"Mm. Good idea. Maybe I should start doing that. People always text me when I'm writing, and I feel too guilty to ignore them." Her cell phone buzzed from the cup holder. "Speaking of texting…" she muttered, glancing at the message that flashed across the screen of her BlackBerry. "Oh, my God!" she giggled, shaking her head and quickly typing something back.

"I can't believe you actually bought one of those things," Tony muttered disgustedly.

"Please, Tony." She rolled her eyes. "You would have too, if I hadn't done it first."

"Maybe we should just be glad Emily finally joined us in the twenty-first century," McGee added teasingly. "I mean, it took a while to convince her that people didn't share phone lines anymore, and you could buy a phone at Target instead of renting one from the phone company."

"Why, Timothy McGee," Emily cooed in a Southern belle accent, "I do believe you are getting a sense of humor."

"That's because of me!" Tony crowed triumphantly.

"Nope, because of me," Emily retorted. They both glanced over their shoulders at McGee, who was sitting in the back seat. "Our little boy's all grown up, Tony." Emily pretended to sniffle.

"I just wish we could get him married off," Tony grumbled. "Or laid, at least."

-x-x-

Gibbs, Ziva, Ducky, and Jimmy were all ready at the crime scene when the other three arrived. Tony and Emily easily sauntered over to Gibbs and began speaking with him in low tones, but McGee hung back a little, afraid of his boss's backlash. Eventually, he stopped examining the car hood and made his way over to Gibbs.

"You turned your phone off, McGee," he observed mildly.

The younger special agent hung his head. "Yeah, I did, Boss."

When Gibbs turned to him, McGee expected his eyes to be blazing and for him to chew him out. Instead, he found Gibbs' eyes passive.

"Don't let it happen again," Gibbs commanded, quickly raising his hand and slapping him on the back of the head a little harder than possible.

"Ow." McGee rubbed the back of his head, but pursed his lips to keep from saying anything he might regret.

"Go get to work," Gibbs commanded.

Emily smiled sympathetically and rubbed him comfortingly on the arm as he came to stand beside her. "Poor baby. Need a hug?"

Tim frowned. "No."

"It's your fault. You have a job besides writing, you know. If you wanted to stay up until all hours of the night writing and then sleep all day, you should quit NCIS."

He rolled his eyes, though he wasn't frustrated at her, just the truth she always seemed to manage to uncover. "You know, I think you should try to be a little more honest with people about your opinions," he retorted sarcastically.

"Would you rather I lied to you?"

Pausing to contemplate the question, Tim frowned. "No. I appreciate your honesty."

"Then can I be honest with you about that tie?" she asked hopefully. "It's kinda fugly."

"_Homa-boy don't think so,_" Tim replied comically. Emily struggled very hard to hide her amusement, but she couldn't keep a loud snort from escaping from her nose. Her laugher was contagious and soon Tim was nearly doubled up with laughter as well.

"McGee! Saunders! Is there something funny I don't know about?"


	2. Chapter Two: Siblings & Boyfriends

Chapter Two: Little Siblings and Boyfriends… Again

**Chapter Two: Little Siblings and Boyfriends… Again**

"So, after this morning, I think I deserve a real introduction to your sister," Emily stated over the roar of the air conditioning in McGee's car. Even though it was eight at night, it was still one of the hottest days of the year.

"Really?" He raised his eyebrow in her direction. "You want to meet the little beast?"

"Tim, she's your sister!" the brunette squealed. "Don't talk about her like that."

"You call your brother a jerk all the time. When you're on the phone with him."

"Well… that's because he _is_. He gave away a very crucial part of Harry Potter to me, and he hadn't even read it. He just heard it from his _friend_." She made a face. "Stupid lazy…" Her grumbling trailed off.

"Okay. I'll introduce you to her, okay? She's not at my apartment anymore, though. She just spent the night there when Mom and Dad had to go out of town. Because she was scared to be alone." He rolled his eyes.

"You're a terrible brother," Emily declared.

"I let her stay, didn't I?"

Emily tried to think of a response, but none came. "_Touchè_…"

"You don't have to take a shower, do you?" Tim asked wearily, rubbing his eyes. "Because I'd like to eat before _ten_ tonight… you take so _long_." _Wow… arguing like a married couple, and we're not even dating exclusively yet. Well… I am. I'll bet she's gone on about fifty dates… maybe I should talk to her about-_

"You missed the turn."

"What?"

"The missed the light," she stated. "Are you okay? You're like, really out of it today. Need me to drive?"

"No thanks, Miss Daisy."

"Geez, you're just Mr. Sunshine today, aren't you?" she asked, mildly annoyed. "First your sister, now me… no one's safe from your sharp wit and harsh criticisms, are they?"

"Am I being that much of an ass?" he asked tenderly.

"Honestly? Um, yeah."

"Okay, okay, sorry…" He shook his head. "I'm kind of stressed out. I keep getting pressure to finish my book."

"Mm." Emily could sympathize. "Which, of course, means you can't think of anything to write next."

"Exactly. I've spent all of my free time away from work trying to write."

Emily frowned and felt slightly guilty. "What about when you go out with me?"

"Well… obviously I'm not working on it then…"

"Let's just order in then tonight, okay?" she asked, as a mixture of guilt and sympathy washed over her. Writing was more than Tim's hobby, it was his passion, and he felt a strong connection with his fanbase. She didn't want to get in the way of doing something he loved. "And maybe… you could bounce ideas off of me."

Tim bit his lip. "I don't know… that's not very fair to you. You really wanted to go out tonight, didn't you? Going out with you is more important to me than my book."

"Really?" It was clear Emily was flattered. "See, but I want to help you. So, really, we're going to end up at your apartment brainstorming and eating Chinese food."

And that was exactly what they did.

"So… I don't think you should kill anyone else," she stated, eating directly out of a carton. "Because I was kind of devastated when your last character died. You can't do that to me anymore."

"What should I do then?"

"Well… give me a brief synopsis of what you have so far," she replied, curling into his lap at the desk and stroking the back of his head.

"Um… well, it starts off with someone dying."

"Really?" She frowned.

"It wasn't a main character."

"Oh. Okay."

"Well, there have been all of these killings and they're pretty sure there's a serial killer doing it. The team gets a new member, and has to work with the CIA."

"Hm." She pursed her lips. "That sounds vaguely familiar…"

"See, that's the thing. I don't want it to sound _exactly_ like what happened – I got in trouble for doing that before. So I want to make it different, and that's where I'm running into some trouble."

"Well, your trouble's coming from the fact that you already have an entire plot line and it works perfectly," she replied. "I mean, as a writer, once you have one idea that works really well, it's hard to get any other idea into your head."

"Right. I already knew that."

"I'm sorry, I just need to talk everything out." She took a sip of wine. "Do you have any other ideas?"

"A few but… none of them sound realistic or believable at all." He rolled his eyes. "I don't know. It's a bad idea to force everything like this… maybe we should just go out."

"Nope." Emily shook her head. "It's too late now. I'm already in a staying-in kind of mood."

"Yeah… me too."

"Well, then… what else could we do?" she asked, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully.

"Well, um… how about a movie?"

"And _cuddling_?" she asked excitedly. "I'm always up for that!" She jumped out of his lap and waited for him to stand, bouncing on her toes like a child. "You know what we should watch?" she asked excitedly.

"What?"

"_Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates of the Caribbean_!" she chanted, waving her arms as if she were a rapper but making the gesture very white just by virtue of the fact that she was _Emily_.

Even though they did end up watching _Pirates of the Caribbean_, they had both seen it so many times that they spent most of the movie making fun of it. Then the movie ended, and instead of Emily leaving, they just continued to watch random things on TV, the kind of shows that are on very late at night. McGee began to feel very comfortable, and like the night hadn't been a total bust, even though they'd done just about nothing.

"Emily? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Tim," she replied, rolling over to face him, a smile playing at her face.

"Well, um… I was kind of going to make this a surprise for another night, you know, do something special and everything? But…" He took a deep breath, "tonight seems good for it too. Ems, will you be my girlfriend?"

Her smile broke out, full-blown. "Yeah, Tim. I'd love to." She kissed him softly. "Tony's been asking me about it for _weeks_."

"You too?" He rolled his eyes. "If its not that, he's asking me how many other girls I've got on the side." He felt her go rigid beside him. "Not that there have been any; Tony just assumes every guy dates like him." She relaxed.

"I'm glad you asked me."

"I'm glad I asked." He leaned in and kissed her again. She shifted her legs, and felt something hard brush against her thigh.

"Omigod!" she gasped, breaking the kiss and pushing herself away from him.

"What?" he asked, alarmed.

"Nothing… nothing." Emily jumped off the bed. "I just realized… I have a thing tomorrow that I have to wake up early tomorrow."

"What thing? We don't have work tomorrow."

"I know, it's… it's another thing. I… I have to write and stuff." She hurried into the living room, slipping her shoes on. McGee followed her out.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, no, I'm fine." She pulled on her coat. "Late nights don't agree with me, though. You know I'm an early morning person."

"Well… why don't you stick around and prove it?" he asked, slipping his arms around her.

"No… no… no…" She broke free. "I have to go. It's a good reason, I swear." He barely started to open his mouth before she silenced him with a quick kiss. "I'll call. Bye."


	3. Chapter Three: How to Avoid Having Sex

Warning: This chapters contains references to sex... or a lack thereof. Either way, this is a heads up.

* * *

**Chapter Three: How to Avoid Having Sex with Tim McGee**

Tony and Emily didn't usually spend much time together outside of work, so, when she asked to meet up with him for coffee the next day, he knew something was up. He just never, in a million years, expected it to be _that_.

"So… you know how you keep bugging me about Tim not asking me to be his girlfriend?" she asked, sipping her frappachino a little too quickly. Tony nodded. "Well, he asked me last night. So… we are."

"You're what? Exclusive?"

"Boyfriend and girlfriend." She sighed dejectedly.

"Why are you so upset?" Tony chuckled. "I thought that's what you wanted him to do."

"It is, but then…" She sighed again, burying her face in her hands. "I don't know why I'm talking to you about this; you're like the worst person to give me advice!"

Now he was getting a little confused. "What happened after that, Emmy?"

"We started kissing, which would probably have led to making out, except we started moving around and…"

"And what?"

"Let's just say he was horny, okay?" she asked, loud enough so that people around them stared.

"Yeah, um…" He leaned forward, lowering his voice, "that's how guys get when they know they're going to have sex."

"I know, but… I don't want to sleep with him."

"Why not? He's your boyfriend now; you know he's not seeing other women. And I don't think you should be dating him if you guys aren't sexually attracted to each other…"

"It's not that." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I can't believe I'm going to tell you this. You'll totally laugh at me."

"What?" he asked eagerly.

"I'm… a virgin."

Tony laughed loudly. "Very funny, Emily. Not really your normal humor, but I appreciate it anyway." He noticed the odd stare she was giving him. "Oh, God… you seriously are, aren't you?"

"Yeah…" She smiled weakly. "And I'm kind of planning on staying that way 'till I get married."

"Um… yeah." He shrugged. "I think you're right; I'm the wrong person to be talking to about this…"

"No, see, that's the thing; you're a guy who I'm sure has been denied sex at one time or another-" He made a face, "-possibly. Anyway, how would you feel in Tim's shoes?"

"I'd dump you," he stated, his face totally straight.

"I'm being serious, Tony!" Emily whined. "You've never had a _girlfriend_ who didn't want to have sex?"

"Um… no."

"But what if you did? Like, you liked this girl a lot, and you guys were exclusive, except she, for some reason, didn't want to do it. Would that be a deal breaker for you?"

Tony sighed, massaging his temples. "Listen, Emmy, I'm _not_ McGee. We expect very different things out of our relationships, okay?"

"Okay."

"If it makes you feel any better, he's crazy about you."

She smiled to herself. "Really?"

"Oh, my God, yes," Tony replied exasperatedly. "Every time you're out of earshot he starts talking about every single little thing you did the night before, like how you do that weird mustache thing with your hair – which, for the record, creeps me out – or when you read him _Harry Potter_ and do the voices…"

"I only did that once, and it was as a joke!"

"Anyway, I think you've got him wrapped around your finger." He shrugged. "So don't worry. I don't think it was the sex he was after when he asked you to be his girlfriend."

"Do you think I should've talked to him about it last night?"

"Yeah, I think leaving him hanging was pretty heartless."

"Okay." She smiled and rose from her seat. "I'm going to go apologize to him. Thanks for talking it out with me." She kissed him on the cheek and rushed out of the café.

-x-x-

"Tim?" Emily shouted, banging on his door. "Tim, please, please, please open the door, I just want to talk to-"

The door creaked open; Emily perked up. The door opened a little farther; her face fell. Sara had answered the door once more. She wondered why they didn't just live together. But then she realized how much she would hate having to live with her little brother again.

"Hey, Sara. Is Tim home?"

The younger brunette frowned. "He's not here."

"Is he going to be back soon?"

"Um… I honestly have no idea."

"Oh."

Sara could clearly see that Emily was upset, and had come to the apartment for a specific purpose. "You know, he's probably going to be back soon. Do you want to come in and wait?"

"Are you sure you wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not." She stepped aside to let Emily in. "Especially since now that you're my brother's girlfriend, I think we should get to know each other better."

Emily turned to her with a pleasantly surprised expression on her face. "I know, right? I feel the exact same way." She sat down on a stool in the kitchen. "Of course, I've been begging him to introduce us for _forever_…"

"You too?" Sara rolled her eyes and plopped into the computer chair. "Oh, my God, the minute he told me about you, I told him I wanted to meet you."

"Maybe that's why he didn't introduce us," Emily pointed out, a smile on her face. "He's afraid we'll get along _too_ well."

"Well… that's just because Tim's boring." There was a settling silence between the two as they eased into each other's company. "So Tim said you're a writer too."

"Oh… yeah, a little." She shrugged. "It's really a hobby."

"A hobby? You got published when you were nineteen!"

"Twenty-one," Emily chuckled. "But I'm sure you'll beat me to it."

Sara's shoulders slumped. "I don't know… I've had serious writer's block for like a month now."

"Well… it happens." Emily shrugged nonchalantly.

"How do you get out of it?"

"Out of what?"

"Writer's block."

"Oh." She paused to think. "I do new things and I talk to new people… and I don't try to write anything seriously. Experiencing nature always gives me a huge inspirational shock, like going to the beach or going camping or something."

-x-x-

Tim entered his apartment fearfully. It sounded like there were thieves in his apartment; giggling, girly-sounding thieves. They were probably stealing all of his scented candles – not that he had any.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked, upon seeing his very opinionated sister and his very opinionated girlfriend sitting in his "living room" together, chatting animatedly like they were the best of friends. It was something he had hoped he could have avoided until the wedding, or never, in the event of a breakup.

"Emily was waiting for you to get home," Sara stated, in a slightly more peppy voice than usual. It seemed Emily's mannerisms were already rubbing off on her.

"Yeah…" Emily agreed slowly, rising to her feet. "I want to talk to you."

"Is this about last night?"

"Yeah…"

"Alright; come on, then." He motioned towards the bedroom door, and Emily obliged with a hesitant look back at Sara, who smiled encouragingly.

"So," he began, closing the door, "are you going to tell me why you ran out last night like that?"

"Yes, but… its not what you think. It's actually really not about you, at all." The brunette plopped down on his bed. "Okay, it sort of is, obviously, since… well, you'll know. Um…" She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the fallout. "I'm not going to have sex until I'm married."

Tim chuckled. "Very funny. What's it really about?"

Her hazel eyes widened. "No, seriously! I'm a virgin! And, no matter who I date or eventually marry, I _will not_ have sex until my wedding night."

"But… you're not very religious."

"It's not just about religion, though! It's more… I feel like it's something really special and I'm not going to just…" She sighed. "I can't even talk about this without making it sound like a sex-ed abstinence video." She covered her face and flopped back on the bed.

Tim sat down next to her. "So that's why you left yesterday?"

"Yeah. I was pretty sure you wanted to do it and I didn't know how to say anything."

"It was because you don't actually want to be my girlfriend?"

"No." She propped herself up on one elbow, smiling. "I've basically wanted to be your girlfriend since the first day I met you."

"Really? The first day?"

"Okay, maybe it was the _second_." She grinned teasingly.

"You know… I can't believe I'm say this, but I can live without sex…"

Her face brightened. "Really?"

"Yeah, I mean… it's going to be hard, but I care way more about you than I could ever care about sex."

"You're like the sweetest guy ever." She wrapped her arms around him and they fell back onto the bed. Emily was just starting to snuggle into his embrace when he realized something.

"Sara's still here."

"So? She's a big girl. Besides, we won't be doing anything, according to the conversation we just had."

"I'm not making out with you while your sister's in the next room."


End file.
